Curren$y

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Weekend At Burnies is Curren$y’s sixth album in just over two years, which is a ridiculous amount of material for any rapper, let alone one with such a narrow thematic focus. The easy-drawled New Orleanian rhymes almost exclusively about weed, sidetracking occasionally for low-stakes verses about women (they come and go) or his lavish lifestyle (actually pretty modest, by luxury-rap standards). While his pace may seem unsustainable, though, his output hasn’t suffered for it. Like his 2009 debut, This Ain’t No Mixtape, Weekend At Burnies was produced primarily by the production team Monsta Beatz, and comparing the two records underscores how diligently Curren$y has sharpened his flow in just those few years.

On Mixtape, he sometimes embodied his stoner persona to a fault, rhyming like he was between bites of a sub sandwich. His latest verses are much more emphatic. “Courtside / a few drinks / cussing at the referee / his officiating stinks,” he gloats on “You See It,” pushing his voice to the front of the track so it’s easier to savor his wily phrasing. He’s always had great taste in beats, and he particularly connects with Monsta Beatz’s production here. Where Ski Beatz’s grab-bag instrumentals for Curren$y’s 2010 breakthrough Pilot Talk albums conjured the general feel of ’90s hip-hop, Monsta Beatz’s tracks are much more specific in their references, citing The Chronic’s G-funk synth wheezes, Aquemini’s blunted Southern soul, and Labcabincalifornia’s zoned-out abstractions. These are beats that sound high so Curren$y doesn’t have to.